CHAPTER 26 – THE CELESTIAL WAY
"The journey will never end, yet we will always return home."
– Leikanto Planeo, "Stars Beyond Reach"
The Shard, Terra Para, at the heart of the Reality Vortex
"WARNING! LOSS OF REALITY ELEVATION IMMINENT!" Yeoman Cloud boomed over the commlink.
Ouroboros tore through the cosmic void, going at nearly twenty percent lightspeed. The titanic dreadnought cleaved into Terra Para, plunging within a mere instant into its grey-white expanses.
"Dump velocity NOW!" Kiana screamed.
Ouroboros fired its mega-charged inertial nullifiers, assisted by dozens of Æther-channeling Radiant Knights. In the span of a second, the starship lost nine-point-nine tenths of its forward momentum, decelerating explosively sixty kilometers above sea level. The dreadnought shook from the hypersonic boom of its own atmospheric re-entry as its terminal dive continued, its golden hull passing a mere klick apart from the violet-white gigablazar of the Reality Vortex. Twenty kilometers below, past the ultra energy jet, the Shard's crystalline bulk lay besieged by a maelstrom of warpstorms.
Airo and Veralla stood ready in one of the forward assault hangars. Red lights flared everywhere, a barring signal raking their stiffened nerves. The hull variformed away, revealing the hellish landscape in naked truth, unshielded by AR screen filters. Sensors could detect no hostiles, battered by the intense full-spectrum interference.
Then, a swarm of luminous shapes poured out of thin air right in the dreadnought's path and proximity alarms blared as over a hundred draconic Revenant charged skyward.
"Contact! Hostiles straight ahead!" Yeoman Cloud reported."Bearing 0-0-0, numbers high, advise immediate action! Rerouting additional shields power!"
"Battlestations! Everyone, battlestations!" Kiana shouted across the commlink. "Strike teams, deploy now! Repeat, full deployment!"
"Puskam Srbsko!" Yeoman Cloud added with egregious enthusiasm.
The commlink exploded with chatter and adrenaline-pounding, turbofolk soundtrack. Ouroboros fired its forward point defense cannons, blasting a barrage of veronite energy lances at the oncoming swarm of Revenant. The draconic apparitions scattered and the dreadnought tilted, maneuvering into combat position.
A second later the whole world was rocked by a supernatural, bone-rattling roar and an enormous black shape emerged from the storm-shrouded ridges of the Shard, swiftly ascending toward Ouroboros.
"Red alert! Red alert! Alpha Target in sight! Alpha Target in sight!"
"Deploying Spark One!"
Veralla dashed forth toward the launch bay's containment forcefield as the hangar lights all turned blindingly green.
"GO, GO, GO!"
Take care!, Airo thoughtcast hastily, his mind rigid from tension.
You too!, she cast back, her own hearts racing. She spread her wings, the heavy jetpack strapped between them roaring to life, and with a leap disappeared into the pandemonium outside.
The lights turned red, hundreds of reflective surfaces radiating in forbidding glare.
"Spark One is away! Spark One is away! Preparing deployment of Spark Two!"
"Countdown initiated!"
Airo's heads-up display filled with giant oversaturated digits, adding another obvious mark for his hyperalert psyche to follow.
10...
9...
8...
He stared at the numbers, each second taking an eternity to pass.
7...
6...
5...
In that eternity, he cleared his mind of all distractions, leaving only tranquil emptiness.
3...
2...
1...
The lights again turned green.
"Deploying Spark Two!"
Airo rushed three steps forward, passing through the cyan forcefield, and left Ouroboros.
The warpstorm megafront hit him with brutal tenacity and deafening thunder drowned out his hearing even through the armor's insulation. He felt a powerful thrust when the armor's own propulsion system kicked in, carrying him forward. The superstorm buffeted him, its gusts jarring beyond physicality, dislocating all levels of his being in different microfractal directions. High-pitched whine pierced his skull, the heads-up display lighting up in amber frenzy.
Reality elevation 5%!
Reality elevation -90%!
Reality elevation -285%!
Airo pushed his will, summoning his starblade, and the overwhelming entropy subsided. He looked around, taking a read on the situation. The horizon was nowhere to be seen and neither land nor sky nor perspective were discernible, all devoured by sheer non-existence. Somewhere above, Ouroboros and the Radiant Knights clashed against the Revenant, their fate reduced to an ocean of fuzzy telemetric AR data. Deeper in the superstorm, Veralla did battle with Mentoria, her mind an incandescent beacon in the primeval chaos.
And far underneath was the monolithic, immovable presence of the Shard.
Airo peered at his destination. Down below, the Shard was shrouded in darkness, barely recognizable from when he had last seen it. The superstorm had all but buried the Shard and its cobalt surface was no longer enveloped in the protective golden haze of the Shield. The Reality Vortex had grown to staggering proportions, its raging singularity a mountain of its own, the secondary nucleus of plasma and lightning now a monstrous chimera of viridian tentacles, lashing in hyper-forked fractal arcs, forming a lattice of instant disintegration. Blasting outward from this nightmare was the planetary-scale energy beam, its lurid light casting the only illumination in this decaying locality.
Airo rushed parallel to the titanic energy beam at full throttle and headed toward the Shard's summit, knowing Ferrtau was somewhere down there, in the heart of the storm.
***
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Veralla had never felt more scared in her brief life. Ever since she returned Airo to life by her will alone something happened, and now her senses were drowned with constant, near-infinite input. She was seeing myriad waves of complex images and was hearing whole symphonies of discordant resonances. Her scales were tingling from the ceaseless touch of pure reality and she could smell a legion of exotic substances, not all of them material. She felt completely overwhelmed by these new experiences and only Airo's presence gave her any semblance of stability, preventing her from going mad from the exposure. She clung dearly to the calming stream of his mindlinked thoughts, anchored against this vast, frightening tide by the light of his love.
But Airo was not here now, and she was alone in the terrifying warpstorm. She could still feel him somewhere away, his bright resolve like a beacon in the utter darkness. She drew strength from that, bolstering her own will to carry out her task.
She raced past the huge forms of the oncoming Revenant, dashing and veering to evade their lancing energies or flashing claws. None of the apparitions gave chase after her, all of them busy battering Ouroboros with volleys at range, and the dreadnought replied in kind, spitting its own devastating barrages. Radiant Knights formed a protective ring around Ouroboros, harrying the Revenant or trying to press them between the phalanx and the dreadnought's weapon arrays.
Veralla left the furious battle behind her. Ahead, the great shape of Mentoria dominated the stormy darkness, her own void-black body perceivable only thanks to Veralla's overloaded senses. Mentoria approached like a falling meteor, coming straight at her. Veralla braced for the imminent clash, preparing to dodge aside, ready to defend herself however she could.
Within a wingbeat Mentoria reached her – and rushed onward without pause, continuing toward Ouroboros.
Veralla froze in panic. She had to catch Mentoria's attention, otherwise everything was lost. She had a single moment to make a decision. In blind desperation she lunged forward, jetpack at maximum thrust, and raked her claw against Mentoria's enormous tail, just as its tip snaked right past her.
The colossal dragon stopped mid-air with a violent roar. She turned and two giant silver eyes, full of blazing fury, stared through the raging warpstorm right at Veralla.
***
As Airo descended closer to the Reality Vortex the world became ominously calm, the crash and thunder of the warpstorm falling behind. Even the light from the energy beam faded, and only the starblade in his hand gave off any illumination. Sheer, absolute nothingness lay ahead. Airo began to doubt his navigation, when the azure outline of the Shard's summit finally emerged amid the shrouding singularity.
Distances were impossible to gauge at this point. The Shard was a mass of crystalline surface below. To one side was the impenetrable, broken darkness of the super warpstorm. To the other was the boundary of the Reality Vortex itself, a wall so empty it unraveled the mind just observing it. And standing between these two cosmic forces, dressed in his old Knight armor, was Tungust Ferrtau.
Airo adjusted his trajectory, moving by the power of his starblade, his power armor and all electronics long since non-functional. He made a somersault and landed right before Ferrtau on one knee.
"I should have known you would make one last attempt," Ferrtau noted solemnly, turning partly to Airo. He was holding his arms high and his hands blazed like miniature suns. "It is entirely in your style, and the Radiant Knights probably have not been difficult to persuade to make such a pointless sacrifice."
Airo rose quickly and took a sidestep, turning his back to the wall of emptiness to avoid looking at it. He lifted his starblade, staring at his former friend with determination. "Nothing is ever pointless," he said, shunting his helmet. "It is the act that defines the person, not the end result. However, this time I also intend to define the result."
Ferrtau extinguished the lights he held and lowered his arms. "Brave words, Airo." In the warpstorm his blonde hair look like gleaming metal and his green eyes mirrored the maddening abyss of the Reality Vortex. "How will you back them up?"
"I will try with reason and kindness first," Airo called, shouting over the sudden gale and thunder which began to stir. "Let go of your grief, Ferrtau. Embrace again the light of the Way. Be the Lightbringer everyone knows. Be the friend I had. Be the soulkin Kalessia had.
"Please, stop this madness, Ferrtau. Let us help you."
Ferrtau's chromed hair glinted, as his shoulders trembled faintly. He made a sad, pained sigh, meeting Airo's gaze. "No. My crusade must be completed."
"No?" Airo repeated, tightening his grip. "So be it. Then you leave me no choice." He willed the starblade to timeshift him, supercharging his reflexes to strike down Ferrtau with one decisive blow.
Without warning his senses were ripped into million pieces. Black wave washed over him, as if the Reality Vortex tried to pull his entire being into its dreadful limbo. Airo reeled, all but collapsing on the crystalline ground, barely staying conscious.
"Can you not feel it, Airo?" Ferrtau asked with a sweeping gesture. "The Æther here is dead. The hunger of the Vortex is absolute. I am the one thing keeping this island of existence stable. You are alive only thanks to your starblade and my sheer generosity. Yet time is of the essence, so I cannot keep my goodwill toward you for long."
Airo coughed, recovering on his feet just as Ferrtau made an unsheathing motion and summoned his own blue-white starblade.
"Forgive me now, Airo. Or forgive me in Paradise. It matters not, for Ascension is at hand," Ferrtau said and made a step forward, raising the brilliant sun-sword.
***
Mentoria lashed her gigantic claw and unleashed an unseen wave of terrible force, sending it tearing across the warpstorm. Veralla's mind twinged, making her lift her foreclaws instinctively and the reality-altering wave hit them with a hard, painful impact, as if she had fallen on them from a great height. Across the fractured distance, Mentoria roared, her silver eyes blazing with hate and murder. Veralla peered into this frightening stare, seeing the invasive madness which plagued the aethereal's psyche.
"Mentoria! Please hear me!" she screamed. "Fight it, Mentoria! Resist Ferrtau's will! Come to your senses!"
For an instant the titanic dragon closed her eyes and Veralla dared to hope she was heard. But then Mentoria jerked her head and her eyes opened at the same time her jaws did, unleashing her firebreath with a shattering roar. A great, overwhelming cone of blindingly-bright fiery death rushed forth, expanding wider and wider, until it filled the entire horizon.
Veralla had no room or speed to evade this attack. As Mentoria's firebreath came toward her within mere moments, she did the only thing she could think of: she rapidly swelled her chest and used her own firebreath.
The silvery flames crashed against one another, locking into a flowing, surging opposition mere meters away from Veralla. She flamed on, pouring all her strength into her firebreath, yet she could not move Mentoria's essence even an inch. Endless seconds passed, each one putting more and more strain on Veralla. She had few moments left before the much stronger dragon overwhelmed her. Struggling, she separated a tiny portion of her concentration, and attempted an Æther invocation.
Glawlrhain had told her only once about it, yet she had to either do it or die.
Imagining herself away from where she was, becoming there where she wanted to, Veralla summoned her will... and teleported.
She re-appeared right behind Mentoria, soaring at the same distance as before. Somewhere further away, the battle between the Radiant Knights and the Revenant raged, drowned by the warpstorm's din, scattered lances of energy flashing astray, quickly lost into the broken manifold. Fear and tension made battlefury rise inside Veralla, and seeing the exposed back of her enemy, she let forth a blast of firebreath, shaping it as a ball of plasma so it could reach its target across.
Mentoria flapped her enormous wings, meeting the attack. The titanic dragon intercepted the plasma ball with an open claw and the projectile stopped mid-flight. Then it began to grow, swiftly increasing in size, until it was as tremendous as the claw which held it. With a casual flick, Mentoria flung the ball.
Veralla dashed away from the path of her backfired attack, only to see Mentoria hurtling right at her, teeth and claws gleaming with lethal sharpness. Veralla flared her jetpack to maximum thrust, narrowly escaping a slashing talon that would have torn her in half. She flew in a steep curve, using her gravitic field to assist her acceleration, and managed to loop around Mentoria, coming again at her rear.
Veralla paused for the merest instant to spit another bolt of flame and check if Mentoria was following her, and then she fled for dear life.
***
Airo parried Ferrtau's first strike and countered with a riposte of his own. Yet his opponent's skill and reflexes were as sharp as ever and he barely made an attack before being forced to go on the defensive again. Ferrtau swung in a fierce overhang strike and Airo met him halfway, both starblades flaring in a blast of energy. They clashed in a series of blows, low-high-low-high, mixed with sideways swipes and slashes, each trying to wear down the other's guard with sheer speed and force.
All around them, the decaying reality boomed and thundered, spacetime particles raining as a hail of steep fractality, pure quantum vacuum discharging in bolts of hyperstrung lightning. Airo had no time to think up a strategy or study Ferrtau's technique, his awareness focused entirely on deflecting and making attacks, his starblade guided only by instinct. The same, however, did not apply for his opponent.
Twice Ferrtau came at his side, trying to flank or outmaneuver him. Airo stifled each of these attempts, yet doing so made him turn partway, glimpsing the wall of pure nothingness. The sight unnerved him deeply and he tried to keep his back to the Reality Vortex.
It was a mistake. Ferrtau noticed his aversion and began to circle him, forcing him to face the naked singularity. Airo was stuck between stepping closer to the Vortex or fighting Ferrtau against the backdrop of utter insanity.
Both choices terrified him, so he abandoned caution and charged across the swirling crystalline ground at Ferrtau, bellowing a warcry. He slashed the starblade in a sweeping arc and missed, his efforts rewarded with hot numbing pain in his entire right shoulder.
But his desperate gambit succeeded, for Ferrtau had jumped away, landing in the opposite direction. Without pausing, Airo rushed again to keep the pressure upon his opponent. Ferrtau counterattacked yet Airo didn't parry, blocking instead the riposte, trying to knock back his opponent with his charges. Keeping up the constant onslaught exhausted Airo, yet he realized he could end the fight if he just pushed Ferrtau into the Reality Vortex.
Focused as he was on this opportunity, he didn't see the brilliant blue-white sun-sword that came at him from an entirely different angle, until it was too late.